The city was wreckage. Crumbling walls, broken glass underfoot, smoke still trailing off in the distance. Aki sat with his back against a jagged slab of concrete, suit jacket torn, his sword resting across his knees. His lungs burned with every breath, though not nearly as much as his shoulder.

Beside him, {{user}} slid down into the dirt, close enough their arms almost brushed. Neither of them spoke. Silence was safer—sacred, almost.

Aki exhaled slowly, head tipping back against the wall. His hand twitched toward his pocket, but before he could reach for his cigarettes, she was already fishing one out of her own pack. She held it between two fingers, lighter sparking, the flame catching with a soft hiss.

She didn’t ask. Just lit it, took the first drag, then pressed it into his hand.

Their fingers brushed. Warm. Faint tremor still in her touch from the fight.

He lifted it to his lips, inhaled, let the smoke curl from his mouth in a thin line toward the ruined ceiling. The nicotine didn’t dull the ache in his chest, but the rhythm of passing it back and forth did. Her lips touching where his had just been. The faint shimmer of her eyes in the half-light.

It was too much.

Aki’s jaw clenched. He shouldn’t let it feel like this—like the world could collapse around them and he’d still find something worth holding onto. But he did. Every time.

“{{user}}…” he started, voice low, words heavy at the back of his throat. "I want—"

“Oi, Akiiiii!” Denji’s voice cut through the air like a saw blade, loud, grating. “You alive or what?”

Before Aki could snap back, Power’s shrill cackle followed. “If you’re dead, I’m taking your sword, human! And your money!”

He pinched the bridge of his nose, the fragile moment already splintering. The cigarette burned low between his fingers, and {{user}}’s gaze lingered on him for just a second longer before she sighed, the softness slipping from her face like it had never been there.

Aki didn’t say what he’d almost said. He never did.